Everything Everywhere All at Once review
7.9 / 10 — CineScope score
Overview
A laundromat owner drowning in receipts and tax paperwork discovers she is the only person who can hold the multiverse together — while still making it to her appointment.
The short verdict
A maximalist, exhausting, genuinely moving film that uses the multiverse as a metaphor for a family that stopped listening to each other.
Story
The plot is deliberately chaotic, but the emotional line is straight: every version of Evelyn is failing the same people in different ways.
Direction
The Daniels throw everything at the wall and, improbably, most of it sticks — with a hidden discipline in how the mother-daughter story is never dropped.
Performance
Michelle Yeoh's range is the film's engine, and Ke Huy Quan's warmth gives it a heart the chaos would otherwise drown out.
Cinematography
Larkin Seiple gives each universe its own visual grammar — this is one of the few films where the look itself is a joke and a theme.
Music
Son Lux's score is as overstuffed as the plot and somehow keeps pace with it.
Pros and cons
What works
- Wildly inventive
- Yeoh and Quan are superb
- An unusually tender ending
What does not
- Too much film for some palates
- Mid-film chaos can test patience
Final verdict
Messy, ambitious and worth it. It believes sincerity is a form of courage, and it makes that case with hot dog fingers.
7.9/ 10